Category: News

Birdbrains Busted for Blasting Bird Brains

Songbird shooting results in felony

STUART — Wildlife officers were having an early-evening squad meeting in the Allapattah Flats area in western Martin County in March when they heard the sound of gunfire from the southwest.

Several officers and supervisors got into their trucks and followed the sound, which seemed to come from a shotgun and a small-caliber rifle. They got to an area about 3 miles south of State Road 714 near a sod farm that also includes property owned by the South Florida Water Management District. That’s when Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer Ray Woolrich realized shotgun pellets were hitting his truck.

A few minutes later, officers confronted three men who first said they were target shooting and later admitted they were shooting at birds. Continue reading “Birdbrains Busted for Blasting Bird Brains”

Scientists create ‘plastic’ blood

BBC NEWS | England | North Yorkshire | Scientists create ‘plastic’ blood
the artificial blood is light to carry, does not need to be kept cool and can be kept for longer.

The new blood is made up of plastic molecules that have an iron atom at their core, like haemoglobin, that can carry oxygen through the body.

The scientists said the artificial blood could be cheap to produce and they were looking for extra funding to develop a final prototype that would be suitable for biological testing

Mega-yacht Still Marooned off Key West

Palm Beach tycoon’s mega-yacht still marooned off Key West
Palm Beach tycoon Peter Halmos has spent $1 million to gently free his mega-yacht from a federal marine sanctuary off Key West.

But the effort has failed. With another hurricane season beginning June 1, he may have no choice but to drag the vessel out. Continue reading “Mega-yacht Still Marooned off Key West”

Verio to Shut Off Controversial Web Site

PC World – Verio to Shut Off Controversial Web Site
Cryptome.org, a Web site that sometimes posts documents about government policy and intelligence, received a short letter from its ISP (Internet service provider), Verio, indicating that the site would be terminated on Friday. Verio, owned by NTT Communications Corp., said the termination is due to violation of its acceptable use policy.

Cryptome.org has run afoul of Verio’s policy before but historically the ISP has allowed the site to rectify the violation either by removing a document or proving that posting the document doesn’t breach any laws. This time, Verio hasn’t offered Cryptome.org that opportunity and also hasn’t specified how exactly the site violates the rules, said John Young, Cryptome.org’s founder, in a note on the site.

Reformists prepare to take on Ahmadinejad and his militias

Reformists prepare to take on Ahmadinejad and his militias | Iran | Guardian Unlimited
The legislature, the Majlis, voted last week to trim Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s term and hold the next presidential and parliamentary polls simultaneously next year. The change, it is argued, will be cost efficient and will reduce the potential for fraud – a reason, critics say, why the government opposes the move.

Mr Atrianfar claimed that despite the positive impression created by the president’s “stage-managed” provincial tours and financial handouts, most Iranians no longer supported him. “Everyone says he talks bullshit,” he said. “Even in parliament, out of 290 MPs, about 210 supported him. Now more than 200 disagree with him, including many fundamentalists. If the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] stopped backing him, parliament would impeach him in a week. He’s not dangerous. He’s just a little man with an IQ below zero.”

Raising Alexandria

Raising Alexandria
More than 2,000 years after Alexander the Great founded the city, archaeologists are discovering its fabled remains, from the likely site of Cleopatra’s palace to pieces of an astonishing lighthouse that was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. What may be the world’s oldest surviving university complex has come to light, along with one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Pharos, the 440-foot-high lighthouse that guided ships safely into the Great Harbour for nearly two millennia. And researchers in wet suits probing the harbor floor are mapping the old quays and the fabled royal quarter, including, just possibly, the palace of that most beguiling of all Alexandrians, Cleopatra. The discoveries are transforming vague legends about Alexandria into proof of its profound influence on the ancient world.

1,063-pound shark may earn crew a record

1,063-pound shark may earn crew a place in the record book – Northwest Florida Daily News

DESTIN – A Gulf Breeze fishing crew interrupted the dinner of a Mako shark that was feasting on a school of dolphins Wednesday.

And the capture of the feisty 1,063-pound shark may earn the crew a world fishing record.

Nanogenerator Provides Continuous Electrical Power

Georgia Institute of Technology :: News Room :: Nanogenerator Provides Continuous Electrical Power
Researchers have demonstrated a prototype nanometer-scale generator that produces continuous direct-current electricity by harvesting mechanical energy from such environmental sources as ultrasonic waves, mechanical vibration or blood flow.

The nanogenerators take advantage of the unique coupled piezoelectric and semiconducting properties of zinc oxide nanostructures, which produce small electrical charges when they are flexed.

Because zinc oxide is non-toxic and compatible with the body, the new nanogenerators could be integrated into implantable biomedical devices to wirelessly measure blood flow and blood pressure within the body. And they could also find more ordinary applications.

“If you had a device like this in your shoes when you walked, you would be able to generate your own small current to power small electronics,” Wang noted. “Anything that makes the nanowires move within the generator can be used for generating power. Very little force is required to move them.”